


A Booth Full of Three Awkward, Teenage Boys

by alec



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies), Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: 2 Jacks 1 Cup, Alternate Universe - High School, Awkward Conversations, Dorks in Love, Even if this is a T-rated SFW fic, Hiccup is 15, I mean, It's up to you to decide if that's underage or not since laws are different everywhere, Jack and Jackson are 16, M/M, Mentions of incest, Nobody has any idea what they're feeling they're all just awkward and confused, Pining, Prompt Fill, You know what you're getting yourself into, as one would expect from 2 Jacks 1 Cup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2016-04-25
Packaged: 2018-06-04 08:46:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6650935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alec/pseuds/alec
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But then somehow the date and the time and place had become an off-stage competition between the brothers until they wound up here, at the diner, a double date with only three people. A vanilla milkshake was set in front of Jack — everything had to be pure, frosted white for Jack — and so, naturally, Jackson was sipping at the straw of the darkest double chocolate shake Hiccup had ever seen, in a manner which was mildly inappropriate and not helping the burning sensation that had been spread over Hiccup's face all afternoon. A cookies and creame milkshake was sitting, barely touched, in front of Hiccup, and the scrawny boy couldn't think of a better metaphor for the situation if he tried.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Booth Full of Three Awkward, Teenage Boys

**Author's Note:**

> **Anonymous said:** For a prompt, how do you feel about 2 Jacks 1 cup? Modern day date??
> 
> To be honest, I have no idea how I feel about this morally/ethically, but this story was too good to pass up.

Hiccup had not lived a very long life up until this point. He was only fifteen, barely a sophomore in high school. He was going to graduate a year early because he'd skipped kindergarten and gone straight into first grade after preschool. Why his father had thought that was a good idea was beyond him, because that probably played into the next fact: if there was one thing that you should know about Hiccup, it was that he was prone to embarrassing and awkward moments and experiences. Like the time in first grade when he'd brought his at-the-time kitten to school in his backpack and had to explain to the class and a very angry teacher that it had escaped. Or the time in third grade when he'd been caught writing a love letter to Astrid, the girl in his class who would later become his best friend (and nothing more, which wasn't something he was complaining about after his seventh grade "discovery") and been forced to read the horrific note in front of the class. Or the brief stint he'd done on the swim team in fourth grade where he'd been assigned the 100 yard freestyle event and he hadn't tied his swimsuit _just_ tight enough. Or the time in eighth grade when — actually, Hiccup just wanted to forget about that one entirely. That was still too fresh in his memory.

All of that accounted for, he was pretty sure that this was the most awkward moment of his very, very short life. Which he felt that he had every right to believe that that was truly saying something.

He was seated in a booth in what had to be the most eccentric diner he'd ever been in. The walls were plastered with vintage comic books and retro neon signs, and the whole place screamed of an amalgamation of the 1970s and Saturday morning cartoons. Hiccup would have been enthralled with his surroundings if his eyes weren't plastered on the two boys sitting across from him in the booth, not-so-subtly elbowing each other while they plastered fake grins on their face.

Jack and Jackson Overland were identical twins, and they were absolutely notorious at Berk High. They were a year Hiccup's senior, and they had the reputation as both pranksters as well as vehement competitors. Sometimes that would come out when they were playing sports, the boys needing to excel against their opponents and their teammates and be the MVP of the match. But the majority of the time, it was against each other. One was never allowed to have a leg up on the other. Anything that Jack did or had, Jackson needed to do or have better, and the same went in reverse. And in that war, there was nothing off-limits or anything considered "too far." When Jack had mouthed off to his chemistry teacher over why he didn't have his homework done and had been given after-school detention, Jackson had flipped off the principal and gotten himself a week's worth. When Jackson had made the front page of the school newspaper for his work in the environmental club and the new recycling programme, Jack had made sure (probably through means that were better not known) that his picture was featured the following week, highlighting his upcoming art — to "selflessly advertise the upcoming art show and the talents of all of the hardworking artists of Berk's art club," the bolded quote had read. And when Jack had asked Hiccup out on a date, Jackson had handed Hiccup a box of chocolates later that same day, asking Hiccup out on a date, already knowing full-well that Hiccup had accepted the date with his brother. Apparently, the box of chocolates incident hadn't gone over well with Jack, and Hiccup found a bouquet of flowers by his locker the next morning with the brother's name on the tag, addressed to "the most handsome boy in all of Berk." Hiccup would have scoffed if the entire hallway weren't already staring at him curiously and he were beet-red in the face.

Hiccup couldn't understand what either boy saw in him. _Maybe this is just another one of their competition matches_ , Hiccup thought to himself. Actually, that thought made a lot of sense, considering how they'd both asked him out through a series of ever-increasing antics. He could only imagine what it must be like to live with them. But it had to be because one of them had set their target on Hiccup as a joke or as a challenge — _grab the low-hanging fruit_ — and then it became a feud, because Hiccup wasn't anything to look at. He was scrawny and short and his teeth were round and ever-so-slightly crooked where they should be perfectly straight and orderly; his jaw was far too round and his skin too peppered with freckles and the scar on his chin too deep for one of these gods of beauty to be showing any interest in him at all. Much less both of them.

Much less at literally the same time.

Hiccup wasn't entirely sure how they'd arrived at this moment anyways. When it became clear that they weren't going to relent, Hiccup had just said yes to both of them, even if that felt morally ambiguous at best, just to make them _stop_. But then somehow the date and the time and place had become an off-stage competition between the brothers until they wound up here, at the diner, a double date with only three people. A vanilla milkshake was set in front of Jack — everything had to be pure, frosted white for Jack — and so, naturally, Jackson was sipping at the straw of the darkest double chocolate shake Hiccup had ever seen, in a manner which was mildly inappropriate and not helping the burning sensation that had been spread over Hiccup's face all afternoon. A cookies and creame milkshake was sitting, barely touched, in front of Hiccup, and the scrawny boy couldn't think of a better metaphor for the situation if he tried.

And the tension in the air between them was thicker than the milkshakes.

"So, you're in the writer's club, Hiccup," Jackson said with a smile on his face. "How do you like it? I understand the idea of it; I've just never been myself."

"H-how did you know I'm in the writer's club?" Hiccup fumbled out, face growing warmer still and suddenly he became aware that he had hands but didn't know what he should be doing with the foreign appendages.

"I saw it in the school paper when they were advertising the school-wide student publication book. I read your pieces; they were _really_ good," Jackson replied with a perfect, toothy smile, and Hiccup wanted to melt into his seat. He might actually have. He managed to ink out an embarrassed thanks to the brown-haired twin, which immediately had the other brother's attention.

"You should hear him in English, though," Jack said, face not showing the smug grin that his voice was carrying. Hiccup wasn't sure why Jack would want to brag about being in the same English class as a bunch of sophomores. "Ms. Harriet has us work in groups sometimes when we're doing book papers, and Hiccup winds up leading them most of the time."

"Is that so?" Jackson asked, a smile on his face but the back of his jaw clenched in what was definitely anger, his brother having gotten to him.

"Yeah. And you should have listened to him when we had to do the sophomore debates. He was by far the most passionate of all of the debaters, and he basically carried his team through to the finals."

Hiccup was furiously red at the compliment, but he did deserve that last one. The topic had been on wildlife rescue and whether governments should be spending money to establish and protect endangered species, and Hiccup might have gone a _little_ overboard for that debate. Which was another embarrassing moment on the boy's list.

"Do you like to debate?" Jackson asked, turning his attention away from his brother (who was definitely radiating _victory_ in every direction) and focused on Hiccup again. "We have a mock trial and debate team at the school. I'm on it, and we could always use another person who's not only able to be passionate about topics but is also able to win when arguing them."

"I'm on the debate team as well," Jack chirped in, not really adding anything to the conversation other than the weak attempt to make sure that the score at least remained even. The fact that both brothers had joined the debate team had been a surprise to nobody.

When the twins looked expectantly at Hiccup, he became aware that they were actually waiting for a response from him. "Uhm, well, I—" Hiccup began to stammer out, before suddenly finding the table incredibly interesting. "I don't think I'd be very good at it. We just, happened to find a topic that I was, uh, passionate about." Which he realised immediately was the wrong thing to say.

In Hiccup's defence, he'd never been on a date before. In no small part because he was, well, undesirable. The unattractiveness and all.

"So you're passionate about wildlife and animal protection?" Jackson asked with enthusiasm, perking up, and it was perhaps the first sincere smile Hiccup had seen since he'd left home telling his father he was going on a date (carefully leaving out some of the "less important" details). Something about the smile and its sincerity caught Hiccup's attention and his heart beat a little faster. "I'm in the environmental club. We're not, I mean, we don't focus on animals in particular, but environmental activism as a whole is one of the things I'm really passionate about as well. You can blame Mr. Hochman for that; I think I needed something _to_ be passionate about, and taking AP Environmental Science kind of gave me a channel for that. I mean, I knew the world was in a a bad spot before I took the class, but I didn't realize just _how_ bad it was until then." And this wasn't Jackson trying to gain the upper edge on his brother; this was him actually being carried away as he continued to speak, actual animation in his voice and his movements, and Hiccup felt a small smile on his lips as he watched the other boy go on and on.

Jack, on the other hand, was watching his twin and his crush for the past year flirting successfully, and the rivalry that was a constant with his brother was giving over to jealousy. He actually _cared_ about Hiccup; that was why he'd _asked_ for a date, and here his brother was — probably only here because Jack wanted something that Jackson could take for himself — getting along better than Jack would. The hurt stung him, but he wasn't sure what to do or what to say. He hated to admit it, but there wasn't something he could inject into this without sounding desperate, and, as much as he hated to admit it _even more_ , the smile on Hiccup's face was cute enough that he... didn't want him to stop. Even if his brother was the one causing it.

Then there was a lull in the silence when his brother stopped talking, and Jack realised that Jackson hadn't even asked either of them a question, he'd simply talked himself into a frenzy and was recovering from the intense emotions that swept through him. This was usually Jack's moment to strike — when Jackson's defences were lowered — but he found that his mouth didn't have any words to speak. Hiccup sat, a little dazed — _overwhelmed, but also star-struck_ , Jack thought — before, to Jack's surprise, Hiccup looked at him. It was a little tentative, but more relaxed than the boy had been on this whole failure of a "date" that Jack had been dreaming of for months now.

"What about you? Do you like environmental activism as well?" Hiccup asked, and Jack's stomach sank lower still, just like his chances with the boy.

"I, well, I mean—" Jack hung his head, just a bit. "I don't dislike it, and I don't dislike the environment at all, but I can't... can't say that I'm as passionate about it as Jackson is." Before he even knew what he was saying though, he blurted it out: "But when you were debating, you talked about animal rescue preserves, where they rescue the wild animals and you can go to volunteer there or help nurse them back to health, and the way that they're helpful for both the animals and for people who need comfort in their lives, I think was your argument, and I, well... the way that you said it, it kind of really made me want to go. And I did, a few weeks back. It was a bit of a far drive away, but they had one up past Kingstown, and it was..." Jack struggled to find the words, and he knew that his face was deep red, even more pronounced on his alabaster skin — perhaps the only visual distinction between he and his twin, save for eye colour and Jack's dyed hair. "I've never been up near wolves before, and I was kind of scared, but they just rubbed against me and it was... it was really nice. And soothing." Jack sank lower in the booth, feeling both pairs of eyes trained on him.

"That's..." Hiccup began, and it was probably Jack's imagination but he could almost see a sparkle in his eyes.

"When did you go?" Jackson asked, voice carrying the hint of shock.

"When mom took Emma over to Jamie's house for theatre practice. I had the car for a while and you were busy trying to beat my score in Mario Kart, and I, well, like I said, Hiccup is a really good debater."

There was a silence again, but it looked like Hiccup was trying to process all of what Jack had said. Finally: "I go to the Kingstown preserve probably once a month. I didn't actually expect anyone else from class to actually... _go_." Then in a quieter voice, "I hope you liked it. I'd feel awful if you drove all the way out there only to be disappointed."

Jack jumped up at the sound, back straightening. "No, it was amazing. I played with this one wolf — I don't remember her name, but she had almost all white fur except for a couple of streak of black on it, and she limped when she walked but she was a lot of fun to be with and she was so energetic and playful once she warmed up to me and..." Jack's voice trailed off momentarily, before it grew uncharacteristically shy. Jack had never been shy about anything, but here he was, in front of Hiccup, actually holding the other boy's attention and suddenly he couldn't finish sentences. "I really liked it. I'd like to go back some time and see her."

"Her name is Roxy. I don't get to see her all that often, because she _doesn't_ actually warm up to people. She kinda stays to herself, even away from the other wolves, and— I can't believe you were able to get her to play with you."

"Yeah, well, I, uh," Jack's voice trailed off, the blush now completely engulfing his face.

Jackson looked at his twin with something akin to loathing. This wasn't expected. This wasn't _fair_. He thought he'd actually been able to connect with Hiccup over something, and then Jack went and stole the boy's attention, and probably his affection, by doing some stupid day trip (which was his jealousy speaking; this was actually incredibly sweet, Jackson just didn't want to admit it). He might not have liked Hiccup as long as Jack had but—

At first it _had_ been just because Jack liked Hiccup. He'd found out because his brother was awful at keeping secrets, somehow stupid enough to think that Jackson had forgotten how to lockpick in the time since they were ten years old. Jackson had wanted to date Hiccup at first just because he knew it would infuriate his brother and give him a victory token, but then he actually... Hiccup was a complete dork, and apparently, that was exactly Jackson's weakness in a person. It just struck him one day when he saw the boy laughing with a blonde-haired girl by their locker that he was jealous of the girl (who he'd believed was Hiccup's girlfriend at the time) followed by the immediate realisation that that meant he actually had developed feelings for the boy. Suddenly it wasn't a competition for _Hiccup_ , it was a competition for the boy's _heart_. And here was Jack, actually... winning.

Jackson had never been so happy to see a waitress with a tray full of food approach their table in his life. It meant he was saved from watching Hiccup enamour himself with Jack even further as she pulled out a small bench and began distributing the food. The diner served breakfast all day, but that wasn't saying much for a place that seemed like a six year old's dream buffet and their parent's darkest nightmare. She set a massive stack of pancakes made with birthday cake batter down in front of Jack, topped with cake frosting, before setting a burger and fries down in front of Hiccup. Jackson received his burger as well, checking as politely as possible to make sure they they had the avocado that he'd asked specially for. "Miss, could I get some hot sauce?" he asked politely, and the waitress nodded, about to turn away.

"And could I have a glass of water?" Jack chimed in, staring sadly at the empty milkshake glass set in front of him. His twin had a horrendously strong sweet tooth, and Jackson imagined that the pancakes would be gone in a matter of minutes.

By the time the waitress returned with the water and hot sauce, both boys had completely forgotten about their food however. Jackson's mouth hung a bit open and Jack would vehemently deny to anybody he knew that his eyes were as large as they were right then. Hiccup had begun to eat, his eyes closed and his lips wrapped around the sides of the burger, and small abortive moans of pleasure could be heard escaping from the corners of his mouth not filled by the food, and the twins sat enraptured in what neither would admit to being a lust-induced trance. The waitress rolled her eyes, setting the water glass down in front of the white-haired boy and reaching over his dead-to-the-world body to put the hot sauce next to his twin before leaving. She had other things she needed to be doing rather than dealing with table 17.

"H-Hiccup?" Jackson managed to stutter out, his voice sounding a bit more wrecked than he'd like to admit. He could tell that his brother was feeling the same way but for once he honestly could care less about his brother or the competition. He— Hiccup needed to stop. _Now_. This was obscene, and — more importantly — absolutely torturous. When Hiccup pulled the hamburger away from his mouth — only serving to illustrate how much larger it had been than his mouth to begin with — a bit of hamburger juice rolled down from the corner of his mouth and that was it. Jackson choked and almost spilled the glass of water in front of him, his arms jerking in reaction, and Jack tried vehemently to adjust the napkin that was covering his lap, thankful for the first time in his life that he'd actually followed his mother's "How to be a Gentleman" lectures. Hiccup looked up at them quizzically, rubbing at the trail of juice that was running down the curve of his heart-shaped cheek, and both brothers thought in tandem: _This boy is fucking teasing me, and he's going to be the death of me._

That was when Jack caught his brother's face from the corner of his eye, trying momentarily to look away as he willed his heart to regain composure and his body to _chill the fuck out (and more importantly, chill the fuck down)_. And he was shocked to find that there was the same level of entrancement on his brother's face, probably (no, definitely) mirroring his own, and the blush that crept up into his ears was wildly visible to everybody except for the, apparently, oblivious boy in front of them both. And in that moment, Jack realised that his brother actually _liked_ Hiccup as well. And Jack wasn't sure whether to feel a sense of relief that this wasn't just Jackson being a dick to him like he normally was, or if he should be even more jealous because this _wasn't a game, this was real_. All thoughts left his mind though as the squeakish boy chimed up.

"What? What's wrong?"

"A-o-oh, n-nothing," Jack managed to stammer out, and Jackson nodded his head far too vigorously to be any sort of convincing that he was collected and cool about what they'd both just witnessed.

"You guys haven't even touched your food yet," Hiccup said, looking from each of the brothers down to the undisturbed plates in front of them and back quizzically, almost accusatorily. "You should. The food here is amazing."

"Y-yeah, we, uh, know," Jackson managed to stammer out as the thought ' _Jesus, that's not the only thing amazing here_ ' jumped through Jack's mind. "It's, uh — we only just, got our food, and I was waiting for the hot sauce. You know. Spicy. I like spicy." Hiccup looked at the brunette dubiously, wondering why he was suddenly talking like a first grader, but Jackson was too far gone to be able to do anything other than perhaps be thankful that he'd managed to get anything out at all, because he was pretty sure that his brain was shut down entirely.

Hiccup returned to eating his hamburger — mercifully without the tiny moans escaping from his lips — and Jack would punch anybody who mentioned that his hand might have been shaking as he picked up the fork and began to cut into the birthday cake pancakes in front of him. Jackson, for his part, picked up his own hamburger and began eating it. Hiccup was right in that regard; it was a _very_ good hamburger (though Jackson didn't feel appreciation enough to moan). He'd found that, since learning Hiccup liked hamburgers, the number of burgers he ate on a regular basis had begun to increase. It was a subconscious action, even if he was aware that it was a thing that was happening and why.

After the initial... moment, the eating portion of lunch went off without much problem, mostly due to the fact that each boy had his hands and mouth full with his respective meal. Hiccup discovered that Jackson had saved half of his milkshake so that he could dip his french fries in it, and after tentatively trying it for himself, decided to forego the remainder of his ketchup in favour of cookies and creame french fries. Jack discovered that Hiccup was passionate about dragons and fantasy, something that the twins found adorable when he clamped his hands over his mouth as though he'd let out a secret that he shouldn't have, blush creeping up his cheeks and highlighting his freckles. Jack, though, had taken it and gone with it, being the greater of the twins to bend towards fantasy games; Jackson was drawn to fast-paced action shooting games, and so he watched as Jack and Hiccup exchanged stories, occasionally having no clue as to what some of their words meant, and then _especially_ having no idea what they were saying when they stammered over some words in a made-up language from one of the video games they both apparently had played _a lot_. Which segued into Hiccup's affinity for exploration — specifically, urban exploration — something that Jackson _was_ very intrigued by, and both twins were shocked to find out just how many places the young boy had _illegally broken into_ in order to take pictures and just explore. Jackson would be lying if he denied that suddenly he felt an itch to go and explore through the old abandoned factory fourteen miles down the bike trail — the one that had once produced automobiles when the city had been in its heyday as a hub for mass production that had attracted most of its now resident families — at night, dodging under the fallen crossbeams and shining a flashlight on the ground in a sweeping manner to look out for rusty nails. He tentatively asked if Hiccup would let him know the next time he was planning on going, partly just as a gesture of interest, and was pleasantly surprised when Hiccup nodded his head in affirmation before tossing another french fry into his mouth.

And when Jack looked at Jackson asking Hiccup if he could accompany him, and suddenly not feeling like he needed to one-up his brother, both twins became aware that they... weren't fighting or competing for Hiccup. This was the first time in their memories that they'd been — well, they'd be civil with each other on a semi-regular basis, but the first time in a long time that they hadn't been rivals. And it felt weird to both of them, sneaking glimpses of each other as they interacted with Hiccup, and then, to perhaps all of their surprise, with each other.

When Jack slumped down in his seat, splaying his hand over his belly and complaining that he'd eaten far too much and _especially_ far too much sweet, that was like a cue for Hiccup to do the same, and the shorter boy was suddenly only visible from the neck up, peering over his empty plate at the placated twins with half-lidded eyes and a sudden desire to take a nap for the rest of the day. Jack looked almost ready to snore, and even Jackson had on a dopey smile and seemed to not realise he'd been staring at the napkin dispenser for a couple of minutes. Silence fell over them, and none of them were going to comment on the fact that it was actually peaceful, much less that it was amicable.

Hiccup groaned, drawing both boy's attention to him with a sudden, rather surprising interest, as he hoisted himself up, only realising after the fact that his previous position had not been as enjoyable for his spine as it had been for the rest of his body. "I'm going to, I'll be right back. Restroom and washing up," he said, slipping out from the booth, managing to almost trip over his legs. He prayed desperately that nobody had seen yet another Hiccup moment, but from the chuckling behind him it seemed that he hadn't escaped. But it was weird because it almost didn't seem antagonistic, like it normally was towards him. He decided to proceed through the strange dreamscape of a restaurant, trying to locate the bathrooms and hoping that his pulse that had just started racing would calm down.

A few moments after Hiccup's departure, Jack asked behind closed eyes: "So, you actually _like_ Hiccup, don't you?" Jackson was a bit surprised at the lack of hostility in his brother's voice, or accusation, or really... anything. It was just... a question, which when it came to something they either both wanted or something they wanted to be better at, was never a— well, it just never happened in the history of the Overland family.

"Yeah," Jackson managed to say after a moment, the honesty slipping out from behind his mental censor.

"But you _did_ start out only because you knew that I liked him, and so therefore you needed to get him first," Jack said, and on any other day spoken in any other way, there would have been a fighting match in the diner's booth. Instead, Jackson just hummed.

"Yeah. But, well, brother of mine— you've got good taste in men, I've got to give you credit. I don't think I would have seen it left to myself, but it was pretty quick into my little adventure to woo him that I, well, actually wanted to woo him."

"'Woo him?' Have you been reading mom's romance novels again?"

"Only the back covers. You really should try it sometime; they're so bad, I can't turn away. And the library must have thousands of them; they just _keep coming_ — okay, maybe that was a poor choice of words," Jackson smiled as Jack snickered. Silence followed, though.

"So, what are we going to do about this?" Jack asked, breaking the silence again, and Jackson didn't need to look over to know what his brother's expression was. This was, well, unexpected. Even if at least Jackson should have seen this coming, knowing full-well that Jack definitely had a crush on the other boy as well.

"Honestly? I have no idea." Followed by more silence, but this time, the air was permeated with the feeling of the two of them thinking, until finally:

"We could try sharing," Jack said, a bit hesitantly and in a bit of a weak voice, and if Jackson had been drinking anything he would have sprayed it all over the other side of the booth.

" _What?_ " he almost hissed. "Jack what the hell kind of suggestion is that?"

"Well," Jack began, and he was _speaking_ but it was tentative, like he was still trying to sell himself on the idea of it as well. Which, given what he'd just said, was probably a very accurate assessment of what was happening right now. "You actually seem to like him. A lot. And as much as you annoy me sometimes" — and there was the knowing smile in his voice, Jackson could hear it — "I haven't seen you happy like that over someone since, well, Aster." Jackson preferred not to be reminded of that. The past should stay the past. "And so I kind of don't want to take that from you, even if you are a piece of shit like forty percent of the time. And I? Well, you know I like him as well. You also know that I like him _a lot_. So that leaves us with a single boy that both of us like and which neither of us want to give up.

"So the only logical conclusion is that we try to share him," Jack finished after a beat. And logically, his argument made sense. _Logically_. But this was —

"Jack, that's absolutely crazy. On like, so many levels. I mean, a) he's a person, not a thing, b) you're suggesting that I romantically share a boy _with my brother_ , and c).. uh, I'm still caught up on the idea that you're suggesting that I share a boyfriend _with my brother_ ," he got out, and he tried to ignore the steadily increasing beat of his heart. "I mean, we're horny teenage boys. At some point if one of us started dating him, we'd wind up—" his voice trailing off.

Jack just smirked. "Hey, you know what they say: incest is winces—"

"Jack, eww. Don't— I'm— no. That's—" Jackson stammered out, and Jack just grinned from where he was still slumped down in the seat. But there was a definite blush crossing his face when Jackson looked down, and his brother shrugged his shoulders.

"Hey, look— I'm not saying we need to work out all the details to it right now. And I'm definitely not suggesting we go home and practise making out, cause I've got like a hundred better things I'd like to do when I get home — like, for instance, not make out with my brother. But it's an idea."

Jackson was getting ready to reply when Hiccup slid into the other side of the booth, looking from Jack's red face and closed eyes to Jackson's slightly open mouth.

"Uh, did I interrupt something? Cause I can—"

"No, it's, uh, we're, no, we're good," Jackson replied, and Jack just nodded his head in silent agreement. Hiccup looked between the two of them, definitely knowing that he missed something, having a very good idea that it involved him, and knowing that he had probably lucked out by staying in the bathroom for a few extra minutes to steel himself before going back to the table. There was an unnatural undercurrent of _calm_ between the infamous twins, and Hiccup wasn't sure if he liked that or feared that more than their normal bickering.

"Soooo—"

The waitress chose that moment to gently place the check on the table, which effectively ended the truce between the two brothers as suddenly it became a debate as to who was going to pay, and Hiccup was surprised that it was an argument for who _gets_ to pay rather than who _has_ to pay. Hiccup hadn't been on many dates — and zero was definitely included in "not many" — and he wasn't sure if he should be flattered or embarrassed that he had two boys fighting over who gets to pay for his burger and milkshake.

In the end, Jack won the check and Hiccup decided that he'd be both flattered _and_ embarrassed.

By the time that they parted and Hiccup waved goodbye to the twins, heading vaguely in the direction of his house but ducking into an alleyway just out of sight to check his racing pulse and try to calm his breathing, he felt very much ready to be back in the safety of isolation that was his room. This was a bit more excitement than he was accustomed to.

 _Way_ more excitement than he was accustomed to, to be honest.

* * *

The next day, Hiccup found both a box of chocolates and a bouquet of flowers in front of his locker, with a note taped to the front of the door. Opening it with a mix of excitement and uneasiness, he read the scrawl that looked like two people had been fighting over a single pencil.

 _"We had a lot of fun on the date yesterday, Hiccup. Would you like to go on another one with us? - Jack and Jackson"_. The last word of the question was underlined.

Astrid's arms were embracing his neck from behind and her head was peeking over his shoulder. "Dude, what the hell is your love life?" she asked.

"I have absolutely no fucking idea," Hiccup responded, staring at the note and having no idea what was going to happen when he said yes.


End file.
